


Traditions I Can Trace

by folkgirlhero



Series: Mike Crew's Guide to Seducing Your Enemies and Alienating Your Loved Ones [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Also Resolved Sexual Tension, Enemies to Lovers, Leitner hunting, M/M, Mary Keay's A+ Parenting, Monsterfucker Gerard Keay, The bitchy one is soft for the grumpy one, Trans Gerard Keay, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Well enemies to lovers-who-are-still-lowkey-enemies, banter and angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:42:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29747931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folkgirlhero/pseuds/folkgirlhero
Summary: Two men, stuffed full of trauma and looking for answers in all the wrong places.It's a Gerry/Mike Crew enemies to lovers, bby!Weekly chapter updates, if not sooner!
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew & Gerard Keay, Michael "Mike" Crew/Gerard Keay
Series: Mike Crew's Guide to Seducing Your Enemies and Alienating Your Loved Ones [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2186421
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23
Collections: TMA Gerry Week 2021





	1. It's hard to be a man when there's a gun in your hand

**Author's Note:**

> No rating b/c idk if they'll have sex in this one; I assume they will keep me appraised of the situation as I keep writing. This chapter is T though and I'll let you know how to skip any potential future sex if that's what you wanna do!
> 
> A prequel to "Terminal Velocity is Something That Can Be So Personal," written after it. There might be minor inconsistencies, but I think I caught everything.  
> I'm finding that all my fics have one or several theme song(s) and this one, if you didn't pick up from the chapter titles, is Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels."

The first time Gerry saw the name “Mike Crew,” it was the only one scribbled in a neat cursive on the yellowing library card of a Buried Leitner. He didn’t think much of it. He’d just tugged out the last page with the magnetic strip that would trigger the alarm and tucked it under his shirt. It was a long walk, avoiding the Underground, but teenaged Gerry spent it flushed with success from the months he’d spend scouring newspapers for unexplained mishaps, the hours he’d spent combing the stacks. He imagined the moment he would present it to his mother, the way her face would twist in triumph, the way the force of her expression would fall on him, refracted from the book. If he spared a single thought for the fate of the boy whose name he held against his chest, it was brief and slipped quickly from his mind.

It was the same the second time, a year or two later, when it was scrawled on the inside cover of another; Web this time. There had been an inscription on this one, “Many happy returns” or something, the kind of thing a relative wrote in a book before gifting it to you, not that Gerry’d had any experience in that. He’d seen it, though, in countless used copies of _Howl’s Moving Castle_ and _Where the Sidewalk Ends_ that he’d flipped through when his mother’d dragged him from shop to shop as a kid. There was a hint of a thought that he’d seen the name before, like a wispy cirrus cloud drifting across the sky, but nothing more. He’d dutifully brought it home, pace slower than before, feet dragging, maybe even an ill-advised stop for a coffee on the way. He had come to terms with the fact that it was the books Mary was happiest to see, after all.

The third time, after the hardest few months of his life, was inside a Slaughter book, which honestly didn’t do a lot for the PTSD from Mary’s death. The gruesome details slid into his head as soon as he was within a few feet of it. It was at a library book sale, too, horrifyingly enough, and Gerry frowned at it when it practically leapt into his hand, racking his brain for where he’d seen that name. When his mind wandered to what it might feel like to drive the post holding up the sign for the bargain bags of mystery books into the neck of the man thumbing the Tom Clancy novel next to him, Gerry snapped the book shut and slid it into his coat pocket, scooping up his perfectly ordinary sci-fi paperbacks and a couple cookbooks to take to the elderly cashier swaddled in a cardigan at the end of the rows of books.

It wasn’t until later, on the Underground ride back to his flat, that he remembered Mike Crew and why he’d sounded familiar. Gerry wound his headphone cord around his fingers and chewed on the inside of his cheek. Could be an avatar. Of what, though? The books had all been associated with different Entities. But maybe he wanted to be one, was looking for a way to do it. He could be like Gerry’s mother, tearing through book after book looking for power. Gerry sighed. He knew how well that would work out for him. Reading a Leitner is not a one-way transaction.

Only one way to know what he was up to for sure. Gerry started with what was easiest: his mother’s bookstore. He’d gotten off the train a stop early so he could burn the Leitner in an alleyway where Mary wouldn’t see him then smoked a cigarette on the way home to disguise the smell.

Mary’s ghost was banging away in her office when he got in, so he lugged the accounting books upstairs to his bedroom to flip through, but after a few hours, head swimming, he had to admit that Mike had never come to Pinhole Books, or, if he had, had never bought anything. Which made sense, really; his mother wasn’t one to share her tomes; Pinhole Books was only a “store” in the sense that it had a cash register. Tomorrow he would broaden his search. There were plenty of booksellers he’d been in contact with for Mary.

When he went to bed, he let his thoughts drift back to speculation. A little voice in his head, barely a whisper suggested _Maybe he’s like you?_ Gerry snorted. What, maybe he had spent his childhood trying to win the love of a power-hungry fanatic who died trying to skin herself? Maybe he, too, sneaks out to find and destroy Leitners to make up for a fraction of the evil he helped to unleash on the world? His interior monologue turned sneering: maybe there is one single person on this planet who could understand you?

Please. No, this Mike was looking for something, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good. And now Gerry was looking for him.

When Gerry fell asleep that night, it was fitful and restless with the crackling electricity of an impending storm.

***

Mike Crew rolled out of bed, head pounding and throat dry, and downed a handful of aspirin. The Lichtenberg creature was nowhere to be seen, but it had made itself known last night, all right, and now Mike was left with the feeling of a hangover without any of the fun of actually getting drunk. Not that he did anything like that anymore. He thought back to a memorable party where some classmates offered him shrooms and he’d spent hours shaking in terror at the excitement and power they’d managed to stir up in the creature.

He sniffed the button-up draped over a chair and shrugged it on, along with a crumpled pair of trousers. Chichester was hardly Oxford, and Mike always looked a bit of a mess anyway, much as he hated it. If only they knew. His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. He probably looked quite good for someone who had spent most of his life stalked on and off by a branching creature of darkness.

He grabbed a coffee on his way to his first class and then promptly slept through it, curled up in the back, hiding behind the ill-advised perm of the girl in front of him. He skipped his second class to do some last minute cramming for a Latin exam he’d not made time to study for, downing another coffee and a sandwich. It was nice out, so he sprawled out on the lawn.

In the warmth of the sun and the smell of freshly-cut grass, he could close his eyes for a minute, imagine he was one of the other students here, with parents at home who wished he would call more, maybe a roommate who he would watch shitty tv with on weekends, with some sort of future he was working towards.

He wasn’t, though. And he could no longer remember the precise curve of his father’s smile, the color of his mother’s eyes behind the glasses resting on the small bump of her nose. Was his childhood friend called Damian? Daniel? He pictured a boy with skin even darker than his own and tight, curly hair, but his face, the sound of his voice, how exactly they’d fallen out after the day spent playing in the rain? That was gone, memories slipping away far too quickly, like sand through his fingertips.

And this Latin exam didn’t matter, either; the only point was to learn Latin for all the books that weren’t translated yet, all the information that was inaccessible to him, anything that could hold the key to releasing him from this prison, this monster that was eating away at his memories, his sanity, his _life_ , piece by piece. It was only a matter of time, really.

Mike sighed and flipped his textbook closed, scooping it into his bag with the remains of his sandwich. He skipped his exam, instead heading off campus towards Lion Street Books.

When he pushed the door open with a tinkling of the bell and breathed in the smell of old paper, he felt a muscle relax in his jaw, a weight ease from his shoulders. Who knows what he might find in here? Today could be the day. Out of all the mysterious, powerful books he’d found, one of them had to hold the answer.

“Be with you in a mo’” came Herbert Knox’s voice from the back room.

“No hurry,” Mike called back, trooping back to the section on the supernatural. There was plenty of goofy-looking nonsense from the ‘70s and pseudo-Wiccan shit from the ‘90s, but there were older and more interesting things buried in there too. Mike pulled out a few promising-looking volumes and tucked himself into a soft yellow chair in the corner to flip through them.

He lost track of time for a bit, but eventually Knox’s shadow fell between him and the light, which he just noticed was flickering.

“Yes?” he peered up at Knox.

“You planning on buying any of those, son?”

“Yes, of course. Apologies.” Mike unfolded himself from the chair and stretched before selecting three of the more promising books from his pile.

“Just these, for now,” he said, handing them over.

Knox nodded and, glancing resentfully at the pile Mike left next to his chair, went to ring him up.

“Did you find what you were looking for,” he asked, bored, while Mike fiddled with the famous author action figures displayed on the counter, eyes glazed over and thoughts still on a promising passage from one of the books on binding forces.

“Hmm? Oh, no, actually. I meant to ask, do you have any copies of the _Compendium Maleficarum_? A translation would be preferable; my Italian is mediocre at best.”

“I did, actually. Sold it yesterday.” Knox looked at Mike curiously. “The bloke was asking about you.”

Mike’s blood ran cold. Who would ask about him? Who would even know him? 

“This bloke got a name?” he asked, trying to keep his voice casual. The lights flickered again, more noticeably this time.

“Keay. Gerard Keay.” 

Mike looked back, face blank.

“Tall guy, long hair, puts out a kind of Satanist vibe, you know, like one of those Dungeon and Dragons fellas. You’d definitely remember him.”

Mike shrugged. “Maybe he has the wrong person.” He slid his books into his already-full bag and thanked Knox as he left the shop.

Gerard Keay, huh? 

***

There weren’t an abundance of men with lightning scars on their necks at Chichester, so Gerry looked for the most promising-looking building, a big, brick, ivy-covered thing that was trying way too hard for something built in the 60s and lurked. He was on his 5th cigarette, eyes flickering between the brick steps and the rolling green lawn they spilled out onto. He was also starting to reconsider his choices as his back started to protest sitting on a ledge for a few hours, when he saw Mike. 

Incredibly, he felt his stomach start to flutter. It sort of felt like a big moment. He’d fought avatars before, of course, and he could definitely take a little shrimp like Mike, but part of him had refused to give up this idea that he could find something of himself in him. Gerry hadn’t meant to, but he’d build up the idea of “Mike Crew” so completely in his mind that seeing the real thing walking towards him was turning into a whole Thing. Gerry felt like some sort of music should be swelling. He considered what the best way to catch his attention might be.

It turned out he didn’t need to. Mike wasn’t just walking towards Gerry; he was heading straight for him, eyes narrowed. He stopped in front of where Gerry was still perched on the ledge and crossed his arms. His eyes swept up and down Gerry’s form, lingering on his ripped jeans (or the fishnets underneath, maybe) and the places where the mouse brown of Gerry’s hair was poking through the admittedly patchy dye job. Mike’s lip curled.

“Gerard Keay, I presume.”

Gerry slid off the ledge. “And you must be Mike.”

He was younger than Gerry had guessed, only a couple years older than Gerry himself. He must have been only a teenager when he’d gotten some of those Leitners… Gerry wondered how much he could have known then, how much he still might not know now.

“You have a book of mine,” Mike said, a hint of challenge in his voice.

“I thought you might be looking for answers in things like that,” Gerry said, aiming for an understanding smile. It was a pretty amateur move. Old demonic tomes like that could be Leitners, sure, but so could a random mass market 007 book.

It didn’t go over well. Mike scowled.

“Aren’t you clever,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. His jaw twitched, like he wanted to demand the book from Gerry but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“Look,” Gerry started, hands up as if to ward off the waves of aggression Mike was emanating. “They won’t help you. They’re all bullshit. Demons, angels, all that shit. It’s fake.”

Mike’s scowl remained, but his expression looked more curious than angry. It was clear he was listening. 

“Listen, I get it. You want answers. But what you’re doing to try to get them, it’s not safe. You’re going to get over your head. All it takes is losing control of the situation once and then—”

Mike’s eyes narrowed and he started laughing, cruelly, clearly at Gerry. 

“Hey, I’m not joking! Your gonna get yourself killed, fucking around with Leitners without knowing what you’re doing. I can help you. I know wh—”

Mike’s laughter cut off abruptly and his eyes flashed with anger. “You? Help me? What help could I possibly need from  _ you _ ? I’ve done things that would turn your hair gray,” He raised a disdainful eyebrow. “And that would be an improvement.”

Gerry could feel a change in the air, like the atmospheric pressure had suddenly dropped and a buzzing static seemed to tickle his fingertips. Gerry’s protectiveness vanished and he felt a swoop of disappointment, which he shrugged off. So he was an avatar, then. Fine. Gerry knew how to deal with those. 

“And I’ve fought things much scarier than you,” he growled, widening his stance and taking a step towards Mike. 

Mike sneered. “You think I’m frightened of you? Put that to the test and let’s see, shall we. But I wonder.” He looked Gerry up and down again, tapping and finger against his bottom lip. “What’s someone like you need these books for, anyway?”

“I  _ don’t  _ need them!” Gerry snarled. He knew he was losing his cool, that his voice had gotten too loud, but the thought made him sick. “And what the fuck is “someone like you” supposed to mean?”

Mike raised his eyebrows and circled Gerry, critical eyes looking him up and down. He brushed Gerry's jacket with the movement and Gerry jerked away. Mike hadn’t matched Gerry’s anger after his initial outburst; on the contrary, Gerry’s shouting seemed to have instilled in Mike a cold calmness. 

“Just that,” he responded, voice soft. “What could be haunting  _ you _ , I wonder.”

Gerry scoffed. Was this guy serious? “What isn’t? I suppose you’re looking to add yourself to the list, then.”

“Hey, you approached me. I think it’s best if you don’t presume to know what I might want. Or anything about me, really.”

“I know enough to recognize an avatar when I see one. So what is it, then? Dark? Vast? I’d guess Spiral from that scar, but you seem too well put together for it, otherwise.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mike’s voice was icy. 

“Oh, okay, sure you don’t.” Gerry rolled his eyes. “How about this, then: what’s with the Leitners? Why fuck with ones from other Entities?”

Mike stepped forward into Gerry’s space. He was easily a head shorter, but the ferocity of his gaze paired with his obvious commitment to not back down from a fight netted a fairly successful power move anyway. 

“I suggest,” he said, voice several degrees colder and a few notes lower than before, “That you stop trying to make it your problem. Leave, Gerard Keay. You don’t belong here.” 

Gerry considered. It was clear he wasn’t going to  _ save  _ Mike from anything (god, the thought was embarrassing now). And, sure, he could punch him in the nose right now, which would be very satisfying. But he was hardly going to murder what seemed like a college student at 4 PM on the steps in the center of campus, so what would be the point? No, there was really only one thing to do. 

He leaned forward, towering over Mike. 

“If it’s books you’re after, then it’s you who doesn’t belong. I think you’ll find that this” —he slipped the corner of  the  _ Compendium Maleficarum  _ out from his bag for Mike to see— “won’t be the last book you lose to me.” 

Fury swept over Mike’s face like a sudden storm. 

Gerry smirked. “Good luck,” he said, and swept down the steps. He didn’t glance back, but he could almost  _ feel  _ Mike’s rage, warm against his back. ____  
  


It took two trains, a bus, and the better part of three hours for Gerry to get back to London and he spent most of it fuming. It was stupid to be disappointed, he knew; hell, it had been stupid to get his hopes up in the first place. He was the only one he had ever heard of tracking the books to actually destroy them, the only one who saw the entities and their power and wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Why would Mike Crew be different from everyone else?

_ Too bad _ , he thought.  _ He’d turned out to be pretty hot _ . Gerry snorted at the thought. Dating prospects might be thin on the ground when you’re haunted by your terrifying skinned mother, whose death has only sharpened her verbal abuse, but he wasn’t yet at the point where he’d fuck an avatar. 

He had cheered up a bit by the time he approached the flat above Pinhole Books. Nothing like having a project, he supposed. Give life some purpose and all that. When dug his hand in his coat pocket to find his keys, his fingers brushed against a scrap of paper. He pulled it out and flattened it against the doorframe to read it.

_Call me if you ever want to make yourself useful_ , followed by a phone number and two initials. _MC._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay and also I want to share that Mike had like 4 different slips of paper with 4 different sassy things written on then in different pockets so he could slip the appropriate one into Gerry's coat when they met; he is both an over-planner and committed to the bit and I love him for it.


	2. You keep your distance via a system of touch and gentle persuasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two boys fighting and flirting, what more could one want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does have one line that I think bumps things up to a Mature rating; if you wanna skip it, it's that paragraph towards the end that begins "Gerry writhed against Mike at that" (and how's that for a fun preview!)

Book-hunting had gotten significantly more difficult in the last few months, but, if someone held a gun to Mike’s head, he’d have to admit it was also more fun. Which was not to say he was winning by any stretch of the imagination. Mike still seethed with rage thinking about Keay raising his stupid little placard at the auction in London, the scene of his latest loss. How did that ripped jeans motherfucker have thousands of pounds to throw at an unknown book? 

He’d looked over at Mike when he did it, too, knowing little smirk on his lips, like he was completely sure that Mike wouldn’t be able to outbid him. And he’d been right! If Mike had that kind of money to throw around on any old book that sounded promising, he’d have killed the branching creature years ago. Or destroyed it? Tamed it? Bound it, somehow? Mike wasn’t sure about the mechanics, exactly, but he’d know it when he saw it. 

They’d had a proper fistfight in the alley over that one, too. It was idiotic; Mike had known that then and he knew it now. But something about Keay’s stupid, smug face when the auctioneer banged down the gavel, something about the challenge in his expression as he watched Mike, eyes seeming to pick out the tic in Mike’s jaw, the way Mike’s fists were balled up in the pockets of Members Only jacket. Mike felt Keay’s gaze on him for the rest of the auction, which he’d really had no reason to stay for, and by the time it was over and Keay was exchanging his money for the book, Mike had gotten himself worked up into a frenzy. 

He’d leapt on Keay’s back when the man came into the alley for a smoke, twisting his arms around Keay’s neck and squeezing as hard as he could. There were a few delicious seconds of hearing Keay’s ragged attempts at breathing and feeling the rapid pounding of his pulse against Mike’s arm before Keay gathered himself enough to lurch forward and throw Mike off. 

That knocked the wind out of him when he landed flat on his back on the concrete, which Keay was quick to take advantage of, moving to leap on top of him. It wasn’t ideal, especially since Keay had almost a foot on Mike, with the boots. Mike was scrappy, though, and fast, and he rolled to his side and kicked up hard at the side of Keay’s knee, knocking him off balance. He stumbled but didn’t fall, giving Mike time to clamber to his feet.

They circled each other, Mike still fuming but pleased that at least he’d wiped the smirk off Keay’s stupid face. He looked better with a scowl, Mike thought; a little dangerous, with his long hair falling into his face and with the way the expression knit his eyebrows. Mike liked that he was the one to put it there. 

“What exactly do you think is going to happen here?” Keay demanded.

“Let’s see, shall we?” Mike retorted, dancing lightly out of the way of Keay’s next lunge and getting a solid jab in on his side. Keay tried to spin around to catch him, but Mike was too fast.

“Stay _still_ ,” Keay growled, shooting daggers at Mike, who shivered pleasantly under the glare.

“Or what?” he mocked.

“Or I’ll make you.” Keay feigned left and lunged right. He fisted his hand up in Mike’s shirt and kept going, marching Mike backwards, toes skimming the ground, until he had him pinned against the cinderblocks of the wall, forearm pressed against his throat. 

Keay’s infuriating smirk returned as Mike struggled against him, kicking his legs uselessly, unable to get enough momentum for it to make a difference. Mike felt Keay’s warm breath against his face, felt the heat building in the small spaces between their bodies. He stopped struggling and let himself hang like dead weight, watching the muscle in Keay’s bicep twitch against the leather of his coat when it had to work that much harder to support Mike. 

Keay felt the dynamic shift between them; his smirk fell. Mike saw his warm eyes flick down to Mike’s mouth and then back up to meet his gaze. Mike tipped his head down, looking back at Keay through thick, black lashes and slowly leaned in. He heard and felt Keay’s breath catch and then Mike reared back and headbutt him as hard as he could. 

Keay’s head had been tilted, so he took the brunt of it in his eye; if Mike were lucky, he’d have blackened it. He hoped he had. He hoped Keay would see it in the mirror for the next week and think of Mike and scowl. 

Keay had dropped Mike and Mike had rolled his ankle and stumbled, but when he regained his balance he saw that Keay’s nose was bleeding too. He laughed with delight and surprise at his success. Keay whirled around and the sound and Mike decided not to press his luck and took off.

Keay gave chase, screaming, “Get back here you little shit!” at his retreating back, but Mike was faster and had taken fewer hits. Anyway, Keay still had the book.

So that one had been what Mike would call a mixed success. Definitely still fun.

It hadn’t all been losing books to Keay, though. Mike had had a victory, mainly because Herbert Knox at Lion’s Gate knew him better. (The fact that Keay seemed to know every bookseller in the south of England was not to be endured. And he was, what, nineteen? Twenty? It was completely unbearable of him.) 

Anyway, Knox didn’t like most people, Mike included, but at least Mike showed up and bought his books and looked respectable enough while doing it. It was enough that he called Mike when he got something in that he thought Mike would be interested in, and this included anything with a Leitner nameplate. 

Mike had been itching with excitement the whole walk home from the bookseller’s. Unwilling as he was to give any credence to Keay's theories on the matter, the ones with the nameplate seemed like the real deal. A Leitner book had killed his family, after all. The times he’d come closest to making _something_ happen were both with Leitner books. He couldn’t always work out how to use them, though, and there were some he’d given up on, weighing the risk as too high. 

This turned out to be another of those. The second he flipped it open, he saw the words swirl and fractal in front of his eyes. The sharp scent of wet concrete and electricity stung his nose. He could almost feel the branching creature reaching out a spindly arm and curling its fingers around his shoulders. He slammed the book shut, eyes wild, panting as he pressed both hands down to keep it closed. He had immediately bicycled to the pier at Bognor Regis and thrown it into the ocean, mourning the £200 Knox had extorted from him. 

That failure still stung, especially after a few weeks of terribly bland rice and bean dinners to make up for it. But he hadn’t stayed alive this long by being an idiot. 

Anyway, he had a new lead now. He regularly called booksellers all over West Sussex looking for Leitners and one of them had finally answered in the affirmative. The woman on the phone warned that she wasn’t in the habit of holding books for customers and that she had other interest in it. Mike just fucking bet she did. 

When he got to the shop, he knew it’d been worth it. The book faintly buzzed with power; it was surprising the woman couldn’t feel it. 

“That’s £30,” she said, sounding bored. Mike schooled his face into a neutral expression and opened his wallet.

“What’s so special about this bookplate, anyway?” she asked suddenly. “I looked it up, but I couldn’t find anything.”

“Oh, nothing collector-worthy,” Mike said breezily, handing her the notes before she could change her mind and up the price. “Just sentimental value, you know. My great-uncle’s self-proclaimed “library.” He passed on a couple years back, God rest his soul” —he tried for a pious expression— “But my fool of an aunt sold them all off without consulting the family. I’m just looking for something to remember the old fellow by.” Mike considered wiping a single tear away, but thought the better of it at the last second. 

The bookseller’s eyes narrowed and she hesitated in handing over the Leitner. “If that’s what you’re doing, why is there another man who called me asking about this book?”

Mike cursed inwardly and gave her a rueful smile. 

“My brother,” he said, crossing his fingers that she’d never seen Keay, who couldn’t have looked more different than Mike if he’d been intentionally made that way. “We’ve a bit of a competition on: who can find more of the old man’s books.” 

He rested his chin on the palm of his hand and leaned in flirtatiously. “You wouldn’t let him beat me, would you?” 

She raised a skeptical eyebrow and handed over the book. “Whatever,” she said. 

Mike grinned and practically dashed out of the shop.

He knew he should wait to get it home, but he wanted to know. He ducked into an alley and examined his prize. It was a large book, heavy, with thick unevenly-cut pages. It was embossed with a twisting vine motif and a calligraphed title that was worn too much away to read. When he flipped open the cover to look again at the nameplate, his stomach lurched with nerves and excitement. This could be it. 

Mike was barely able to contain his excitement on the bus ride back to Chichester, jiggling his foot and tapping his knuckles against the window. The passenger in front of him glared at him and he glared back. 

About 40 minutes into the ride, his phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number. He flipped it open with a curt “Yes?”

“This Mike, then?” came a familiar voice. 

“Gerard Keay. A real pleasure to finally hear from you!” The nearness of his final success, his _freedom_ , made him gregarious and a bit giddy.

“Um. Sure. Listen, this woman at The Antiquarian is saying she just sold a Leitner to someone who sounds a fucking lot like you. The one she was meant to sell to me. That true?”

“Why yes, it is. We’re almost evenly matched now, for all your posturing.”

He heard Keay curse under his breath and then: “And I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re still in town.”

“You could certainly head over to the nearest pub to wait and see,” Mike offered cheerfully. “I can’t promise I won’t stand you up for a better offer though.” 

“Mike, whatever you’re planning with that book, just fucking DON’T.”

“Hmm... Persuade me.” Mike’s voice barely suppressed a burst of laughter at the idea.

“I—what?

“Do you need me to use smaller words? I want to hear you try to _persuade_ me.”

“Okay, well. I mean, you aren’t even Buried, are you? What use is it for you? Actually, what even are you?”

“Has anyone ever told you what a racist question that is? I’m English.”

“What? No, not like that; what _Entity_?”

“I don’t understand the question, so I don’t understand the argument. Next, please.”

Keay let out a growl of frustration. “Not this dumb act again! All right, fine. I know why _I_ wouldn’t use the book, but I don’t suppose I could appeal to your fucking _compassion_?”

Mike pushed aside the information that Keay didn’t use the books (what did he want them for then??) for later and instead gave a theatrical shudder violent enough to be heard over the phone. “Never touch the stuff.”

Keay let out a sigh. Mike could hear him rearrange the phone against his ear, hear his breathing and then his voice, far more low and intimate than it had been. “And what if I asked you not to use it. Would you stop then? For me?”

Mike’s breath caught. That was the kind of shit Mike himself would pull, and it felt worlds different to be on the other end of it. Rather lovely, actually. 

“After only two conversations? Mr. Keay, I’m scandalized!”

“Two conversations and a fistfight,” Keay corrected him, deadpan. 

“Still. As tempting as the suggestion is, I have to decline.”

Keay’s tone changed back instantly. “I’m not going to let you get away with this.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mike impatiently. “I’m absolutely quaking in my boots.”

Keay scoffed, but before he could hang up, Mike stopped him.

“Keay, wait.”

He didn’t reply, but Mike could hear his breathing. Mike continued, through a barely restrained grin: “Why did the dog commit matricide?”

He heard a sharp inhale from the other end of the line.

“Because his mother was a real bitch.”

Keay hung up on him, but not before Mike heard his roar of anger. He curled his toes in pleasure at the sound and a little grin played on his lips the rest of the ride home. 

***

So it turned out Mike hadn’t been an avatar after all. 

It had been stupid; Gerry knew it had been stupid when he did it. But Mike on the phone had sounded bizarre, with a sort of euphoric undertone to his usual obnoxious, taunting speech patterns.

So Gerry had gone to him.

He’d been far too late, of course. Mike’d had a good head start and Gerry took the wrong bus at first. And then it took a long time to try to persuade the secretary in Student Affairs that he was Mike’s cousin and meant to meet him and Mike wasn’t answering his phone and couldn’t he please get his address? And, since that didn’t work, even longer to create an arson-adjacent distraction in the break room and get the address from her computer when she left to investigate. 

By the time he broke in through Mike’s window, Mike was lying unconscious on his floor, dark, wet dirt spilling from his open mouth, while something that looked like a tree come to life, but pitch black, scraped at his face. 

“HEY!” Gerry bellowed at it. “Whatever the fuck you are, back off!” 

The creature reared up, countless limbs extending up to Mike’s ceiling, blocking out the light. It let out a screeching hiss and Gerry choked at the stench of ozone that filled his nose. 

It lunged at Gerry, swinging one of its enormous arms, which Gerry managed to duck, rolling away from the creature now lumbering towards him. 

He coughed from the smell, dodging another limb and digging around in his bag. Another arm, this one catching him on the face, but he was rewarded when his fingers closed around a can of aerosol hairspray. With the drip of warm blood running down his cheek, Gerry gave a sudden bellow that startled the creature out of its next attack and ran towards it. 

“I said,” he shouted, pulling his lighter out from his coat pocket with his other hand. “Get! The fuck! Away!” He flicked his lighter then, and pressed the button on the spray can, shooting curling, misty flames at the creature.

It gave one final screech of annoyance, and then loped away, out the window. It was clear the thing was not afraid of him and had just decided to come back at a more convenient time, but Gerry had bigger problems just now.

Mike Crew lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, looking like a puppet with its strings cut. Gerry ran to him and seized his wrist, feeling a faint pulse flickering beneath his fingers. Mike’s eyes darted back and forth beneath his lids, but his chest was not moving. Worse, there was a slow but steady stream of dirt trickling out from his mouth. Gerry felt sick. 

But he was far from helpless. The Leitner lay open next to them, giving off a faint rumble reminiscent of a crumbling mountain or the shifting of tectonic plates. This was good; Buried Leitners didn’t usually make a fuss if you burned them. Gerry scooped it up and ran to Mike’s bathtub, tearing out pages by the handful as he went. He ignored the claustrophobia that crept in as soon as he’d started harming it, dumping them into the bathtub and setting his lighter to them. 

Not willing to sit around waiting for the job to be done, Gerry rushed back to where Mike lay, still as a corpse. Gerry looked around helplessly. This part was decidedly not an area of his expertise. 

“Okay… okay,” he muttered to himself. “I mean. Dirt filling people up is… bad. So what if I just… get it out?”

Feeling completely ridiculous, Gerry rummaged around in Mike’s kitchen drawers until he found a spoon. He knelt beside Mike and gently rolled him to his side, causing the dirt stream to speed up. Cheered by this, Gerry wedged his spoon into Mike’s mouth and scooped out a dirt clod, then another. 

It seemed to be working; or at any rate, the stream was getting faster and faster, which was probably a good thing. Gerry kept scooping, now and then adding an encouraging “That’s it.” or “Just a bit more now.” He’d started gently rubbing Mike’s back with his free hand. Every part of the experience felt very odd.

Eventually the stream started to slow again and Mike started to twitch and then actually try to move and get up from where Gerry had propped him against Gerry’s knees. 

“Hey wait, slow down,” he tried to warn, but at the sound of his voice, Mike jumped and started struggling. 

“What the fuck at you doing?” Gerry yelled, groaning when one of Mike’s elbows caught him on the bridge of the nose. He gave up trying to restrain Mike and hastily scooted out of his reach. 

Mike whirled around, eyes wild, arms flailing. He tried to sit up, but crashed to the ground instead, glaring daggers at Gerry.

Now that Mike was conscious again, Gerry wasn’t all that thrilled to be in a room with him either. He crossed his arms and glared back. 

“You’re fucking welcome,” he spat. 

Mike’s eyes bulged in comic rage and he opened his mouth and took in a breath, no doubt to tear Gerry a new one, but instead more dirt poured out. Mike panicked at that, and gasped, which Gerry would have told him was a terrible idea, if he thought he would have listened. 

The gasp triggered a coughing fit and Mike dragged himself up and stumbled to his bathroom, gagging on dirt and giving Gerry the two finger salute as he went. 

Gerry tilted his head to the side, smile on his lips, waiting… and was rewarded with a choked “what the FUCK, Keay??” when Mike caught sight of the burnt remains of his book in the smoke-filled bathtub. Gerry made sure to laugh loudly enough for Mike to hear it as he wandered to the kitchen to raid his fridge.

So yeah. Not an avatar. But trying to become one. 

And, christ, it wasn’t like that was better. It could be worse; not all avatars choose that life, after all. And here Mike was, doing just that. 

Gerry should... he didn’t know. Do something. Kill him? He would kill an avatar, so why not? He shook his head. Mike wasn’t an avatar, though, despite his stupidest efforts, and Gerry wasn’t ready to cross the line into killing actual people _Minority Report_ style, just because they might become avatars eventually. 

Plus—and he really didn’t want to admit this, even just to himself—he didn’t want to kill Mike. It had been nearly 8 months now since they met and, as fucked up as it was, as much as he genuinely worried about what Mike could do, he liked having this—what? Competition? Rivalry? Whatever it was. When he thought about the corner of Mike’s full mouth turning up in a smirk or his eyes flashing in rage when they fought, well. He was beginning to worry that he rather liked Mike, too. He had never met anyone with more pent-up anger than himself.

Thirty minutes later, Mike came out of the bathroom with a waft of sandalwood-scented steam. He was toweling off his hair and had a fresh shirt hanging unbuttoned, revealing fresh scrapes all over his torso. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed and he moved gingerly, like his body had been tossed down a steep hill and bruised all over. He looked like shit.

“You look like shit,” Gerry commented, over the top of the bowl of leftover Thai he’d heated up for himself. He was lying, but Mike scowled at him anyway.

“Why are you still here? Is that my panang?” Mike’s voice was raspy.

Gerry looked down at the bowl and back at Mike, holding it out to offer him some. Mike gave him a withering look.

Gerry shrugged. “I’m still here because we need to talk.”

“Oh _do_ we? Shall we talk about how you burnt my book?”

Gerry dropped the bowl onto the table with a clatter. “Your book. You could have died, or worse, and you want to talk about the fucking _book_?”

Mike draped the towel of his shoulders and started buttoning his shirt. “I was fine,” he croaked.

“You were lying on the ground, unconscious, mouth full of fucking dirt, while some fucking Spiral creature clawed at your fucking face.”

Mike paled, but his voice was firm when he crossed his arms and looked Gerry in the eye. “I had it under control.” 

Gerry scoffed and threw his hands in the air uselessly. 

“I did. I’ve done this before, you know. With the dirt and the suffocation and all.” Mike undid his tightly-wound arms to wave one vaguely, presumably to encompass the Buried. God, he really knew nothing. 

“Last time, when I just sort of resigned myself to death, just got real nihilistic about the whole thing, it stopped. So. I just did that again.” His voice had gotten unsteady, far from his usual relaxed over-confidence, but it shifted back to annoyance when he looked at Gerry. “So I’m sure I would have woken up any moment, without your interference.”

“That… actually might have worked,” Gerry said thoughtfully. 

“I’m telling you it did already, aren’t I?” 

“Fine. And the creature? _That_ wasn’t going away by you playing dead.”

Mike’s face closed off like someone had slammed the shutters. He stormed towards Gerry, who could smell the metallic burning, feel the electricity crackling in the air. 

“Don’t speak to me about that,” he hissed. “Not ever.” Gerry took a step back and found himself pressed against a wall, with Mike still crowding him, cold fury pouring off him. The overhead light buzzed and flickered. 

“What is this?” Gerry demanded, more curious than frightened. “How are you doing it? Are you human or not?”

Mike blinked a few times, quickly, and gave his head a little shake as if to dislodge something. He gave Gerry a critical look. 

“Never you mind,” he responded, holding Gerry’s gaze. His eyes were the brightest thing Gerry had ever seen. He felt a tingle of fear—and something else—travel up his spine and he gave an involuntary shiver. 

Mike pulled away and flipped his towel over the back of a chair. “Now,” he said, tone business-like and faux-polite, mask up. “If that’s all…”

Gerry felt like he had whiplash. “What? No that’s not “all.” You’re out here, with your _lightning powers_ or whatever the fuck, specifically looking for these books, intentionally using them to bring more of this bullshit into the world, like a total idiot who has no clue what the fuck he’s doing and who is going to get himself killed, or worse, turned into one of them. If you aren’t already.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gerry let out a bark of a laugh. “Oh, _I_ don’t know what I’m talking about? Really? I know a whole lot more than you do. Do you even know what that dirt was? Do you even know what that creature was?”

Mike let out a snarl at that, but Gerry cut him off. “No! Do you know what the fuck you’re even trying to do? Who you’re trying to call with all of this? You fucking moron, you don’t know shit!”

Mike punched him then, right in the stomach, knocking the wind right out of him and shutting him up. When Gerry doubled over, clutching his stomach, Mike brought his knee up to Gerry’s nose.

Gerry fell back with a groan, crashing into the kitchen table and only just keeping his balance. 

“Well?” came Mike’s voice. “Anything more to say?”

Gerry clung to the edge of the kitchen table, gasping to catch his breath. He could feel Mike, tense and radiating waves of aggression right next to him. He wasn’t going to let him pick a fight to get out of this.

Gerry slowly stood back up. His jaw was set and he took a single step towards Mike, who stepped back.

“Mike,” he said quietly. “What is that creature?”

Mike pressed his lips together in a thin line and shook his head. The light above them flickered again.

Gerry held up his hands, made his voice even softer. “I need you to tell me, Mike.”

He took another step forward and Mike took another step back. The air crackled and Gerry felt the electricity between his chest and his shirt, in the tickling of his staticky strands of hair against his face.

He took another silent step forward, and this time Mike's hips hit the counter.

“Go ahead,” Gerry said.

Mike looked back and forth, panicked. He clenched a fist, weighing whether or not to throw another punch.

“Mike,” said Gerry, softer than anything.

Mike threw his arms around Gerry’s neck and pulled him down into a kiss. 

Gerry let out a yelp of surprise and started to pull away, but Mike slid his fingers up his neck and wound them around his hair, cupping Gerry’s face with his other and Gerry couldn’t help but melt into it. Hadn’t he been sneaking glances at Mike’s lips, anytime he curled them, or twisted them into a smug smile, and wondering what they’d feel like pressed against his own? 

They were warm, for one thing, and soft. And the way he moved them against Gerry’s mouth made something twist pleasurably inside Gerry’s chest, made him press closer. You never would have thought he’d been throwing up dirt an hour ago, Gerry thought wildly. 

But after a minute, the rest of his brain caught up with his stunned-by-his-first-kiss-in-literal-years brain. This was such a clichéd diversionary tactic, it was honestly embarrassing. He pushed Mike away. 

Mike was breathing heavily, and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“What was that about?” Gerry demanded, still a bit dazed. 

Mike shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be about anything, does it? I just wanted to.”

Gerry grasped at his thoughts—the creature, Mike’s Leitner obsession, his fears about what Mike might do, about what might happen to him—but all of them slipped away like sand through his fingers when he looked at Mike, still panting a bit, with eyes shining...

Gerry lunged in, sliding his hands along Mike’s waist and lifting him on to the counter, wondering if it would piss him off, hoping it would. 

It did. Gerry smirked at Mike’s shout of outrage and kicks at Gerry’s stomach, which Gerry endured for the pleasure of shutting Mike up with another kiss and a sharp nip of teeth on that plump lower lip of his. Mike let out a soft groan at that, wrapping his legs around Gerry’s waist and pulling him close, sliding his hands under the hem of Gerry’s shirt to run light fingers over his stomach. 

The kitchen was so quiet, just the sounds of their clothing rustling and their mouths and their soft moans. Gerry felt warm all over, dazed and dizzy from the smallest shift of Mike’s lips or graze of his fingers or rumble of pleasure in his throat. Gerry pressed his tongue against Mike’s lips, needing more, and Mike parted them immediately, tilting his head to give Gerry better access and giving his tongue a hard suck that pressed his piercing against the roof of Mike’s mouth. 

Gerry writhed against Mike at that, desperate for friction, and Mike’s fingers made their way to the zipper on Gerry’s jeans. Like a flash, Gerry could picture Mike naked, skin flushed and glowing, eyes bright and wild, Gerry’s pale hands around his waist, holding him steady while he fucked into him, fast and relentless. The ache in his chest at how desperately he wanted it scared him. What the fuck was he doing here?

“I’m not fucking you,” Gerry said suddenly, pulling away.

Mike raised an eyebrow and leaned back against his cupboard, unwrapping a leg from Gerry’s waist to prop an elbow on it and rest his chin on his hand. He looked over Gerry, considering. Gerry had to stop himself from squirming under his gaze.

“Do you say that to all the girls you get fresh with, or just me?”

Gerry laughed. “All the ones I don’t fully trust, yeah.”

Mike let out a dramatic sigh. “Honestly, I should be pleased that you trust me at all.”

“I don’t,” Gerry retorted, which was true. Wasn’t it?

“Well I can’t say it hasn’t been an exciting evening.” Mike hopped down from the counter and steered Gerry towards the door. “Ta ever so for dropping by, and so on.”

Gerry was face to face with the door and found that he didn’t entirely want to leave. Which was ridiculous, he’d been here ages and had gone from saving Mike to arguing with Mike to getting punched by Mike to making out with Mike. Surely it was time to go home now.

"Don't expect me to suddenly pull any punches on you,” he said, instead of walking out the door. “You're still a dumbass and a danger to yourself and everyone around you."

Mike seemed to take it as a compliment, and responded in kind: "Keay, I would be supremely disappointed if you did."

Gerry quirked his mouth up. “You have to stop calling me that; I feel like we’re academic rivals at some swotty boy’s school.”

Mike watched the swish of his coat as he swept out the door and down the hall, still reeling at a framing of their relationship that was somehow even gayer than the current situation. He vowed to never call him “Keay” again, then shut his front door and got to work. It was time to regroup.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments fill my life with light and love!


End file.
